The Oil Drum | Gas tax increases are not a panacea...

35 comments on Gas tax increases are not a panacea...

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rtz on October 30, 2005 - 2:37pm

Well... a ~10 cent tax is one thing..

Was it in '73 when there were high prices and outright shortages? What about in the early 80's when the prices were high? What about next time?

The oil will never run it, it will just get to where it's no longer cheap.

Why not be ahead of the curve and decouple ourselves from being dependent on being able to buy gasoline or diesel from local gas stations?

Semi trucks, ships, and aircraft have nothing to worry about in the future. They can run off biodiesel and alcohol.

For our cars and trucks, the options we have are:

You can make your own biodiesel.

You can make your own alcohol.

If your vehicle is diesel powered, you could run off either of those fuels. If you vehicle is gasoline powered, you could convert it to run off alcohol.

The other option is battery powered electric. Take notice this week of how many miles a day you drive. It will be less then you think now.

Any car or truck could be converted. Either do it yourself(easy), or have a place of business do it or even an individual do it.

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reno on October 30, 2005 - 7:46pm

You can make your own biodiesel.
You can make your own alcohol.

While you may be able to run your car or truck off biodiesel and alcohol, you cannot run the entire 210 millions cars and trucks that are in America off biodiesel and alcohol..

The notion that somehow, someway, the US will ever become "energy independent" is not a realistic notion!!

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rtz on October 30, 2005 - 9:46pm

Well then battery powered vehicles and nuclear, hydro, and wind power is the way to go?

It is possible to have a fast electric vehicle.

It is possible to have a long range electric vehicle.

If anyone around here has any pull, try and get these people to sell their batteries at a reasonable price(they will change everything including hybrids):

http://www.thunder-sky.com/en/

http://www.kokam.com/english/

Couple more fun links:

http://www.proev.com/

http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/

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Gloomy on October 30, 2005 - 8:23pm

You can make your own biodiesel.

You can make your own alcohol.

Sorry for being a naysayer but this is definitely the wrong way to go. I remember as I child we used to go to our village and distillate our own brandy... With quite substantial effort we got about 20 gallons of it, containing roughly 9 gallons of alcohol. On the credit side - to get to my village and back we burnt around 5 gallons of gas, and we had to burn around half a load of wood in the distillation process... Well maybe the EROEI can be improved but you see my point.

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Dan Ur on October 31, 2005 - 4:57am

Biodiesel In most cases is made from used cooking oil, but can be made from fresh cooking oil. But can not at current production be made to fill the gap in all of our transportation needs. Not even if the farmer uses it to fuel his tractors to farm the corn or the flax, or the whatever to make the veggie oil for his own and everyone elses needs. We don't have the farm land available for that effort.

We are going back to the "Demand Distruction" due to high prices method here! But its not what happens now that is so worrisome. Give the Government a tax policy and they spend the money "WE" give them, but when we have distroyed enough of the Demand, that the Supply of money into the Tax Coffers also goes down. Will we get Taxed somewhere else to fill the Gaps? Maybe a Corn Oil Tax?

Sure go ahead and TAX gasoline, why not! Just remember you voted for it! And if you cut the number of cars on the road ways, do you really need those roadways in the first place??

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